Twitter transplant patient goes home
"Yay! Our little buddy John Gilbreath is going home today! Both he and his dad Chris are feeling great."
Children's concluded its historic Twitter coverage of 3-year-old patient John Gilbreath's liver transplant surgery and recovery with that message (or "Tweet") at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, May 27. Shortly afterward, John attended a going-away party thrown in his honor at Children's. Media outlets from across Dallas-Fort Worth covered the party and captured John bouncing and grinning on camera only nine days after receiving a kidney from his father, Chris.
Representatives from the public relations departments at Children's and UT Southwestern Twittered live from both Chris' kidney removal surgery at UT Southwestern University Hospital and John's transplant procedure at Children's on Monday, May 18. It was the first time that a hospital had Twittered in real time from a transplant surgery.
John's mother, Amanda Gilbreath, said the Twitter updates eased her nerves while she sat in the waiting room during the procedures. At John's going-away party, she said that she was fully at peace.
"This is probably one of the happiest days of our lives," she said. "I would definitely say it's hard to believe that it's finally here. John is doing awesome. He looks wonderful and he's very excited about going home."
John will be able to go swimming and take bubble baths in 3 to 4 weeks things he was never able to do before the transplant. He had his first taste of cheese a few days after the surgery. As he gets older, only football and wrestling will be off-limits. In total, 167 Tweets were sent from the operating rooms during the surgeries.
Chris Gilbreath blows bubbles with his son, John, during John's going-away party at Children's. The father and son were the focus of more than 600 news stories and segments after being the subjects of the first live Twitter coverage of a transplant surgery.
